Business of Apps Podcast

#46: Transparency and mobile performance with Jordi de los Pinos, Co-founder and CEO at SMADEX

It’s undeniable - when it comes to mobile advertising, performance - is what you’re looking from your online advertising partner first and foremost. Nobody would argue with that.
But then comes the second extremely important component - transparency. For an advertiser of any size - big brands especially - it’s crucial to know what channels are being used to drive traffic to their product of service. Is their brand safe with those channels?
Today’s guest is Jordi de Los Pinos, co-founder and CEO at Smadex. Jordi provides complete transparency on Demand Side Platform (DSP) performance.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Jordi’s Journey: Switch from engineering hardware to mobile app advertising
✔️  Programmatic Advertising: Real-time bidding via signal processing and machine learning
✔️  Smadex: Mobile programmatic advertising platform that places ads for user acquisition
✔️  Performance and Transparency: What Smadex strives to give its marketing clients
✔️  DSP: Difference between Digital Signal Processor and Demand Side Platform
✔️  DSP Benefits: Smart technology makes money, quick decisions in real-time auctions
✔️  Privacy and Advertising: Upcoming options and concerns for targeting individuals
✔️  COVID Impact: Mobile advertising scalability and acceleration of digital transformation
✔️  Biggest Problem: Attribution—give merit to partner/company by analyzing metrics
✔️  Android or iOS?: Android
✔️  Favorite App(s): Play Chess
✔️  What’s Jordi looking forward to with app technology in the future? 5G
Links and Resources:
Jordi de los Pinos on LinkedIn
Smadex
Quotes by Jordi de los Pinos:
“As humans, we always want what we don’t have.”
“We help app marketers to get people to download their app into their phone.”
“They make the advertiser money.”
“What we strive to achieve for our clients, in general, is to give them two things that I believe are key on what any marketer would want—performance and transparency.”
“Choose an ad for the right person at the right time.”
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#45: Paid Social Campaigns with Hannah Parvaz, Head of Growth at Curio

Paid social campaigns are what our today's guest app marketer Hannah Parvaz is well known and praised for. Over the years, she was multiple time in charge of an app growth from a pre-launch to millions of users.
App marketers need to connect app with users to grow and sustain a successful app business. First comes search, followed by paid acquisition and social campaigns to drive installs for apps.
Today Hannah Parvaz is Head of Growth at Curio, an audio platform featuring a curated library of expertly narrated journalism.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Audio vs. Text: Audio is better medium for learning, understanding, and connecting
✔️  Authentic Speech Narration: Stories are narrated by people, rather than robots
✔️  Curio’s Competition? Apple News+ is simply another option with a different focus
✔️  Product, Users, Experiments: How to prepare, launch, and run social media campaigns
✔️  Social Campaign Copy: Optimize app store listing and obtain high comprehension score
✔️  Mistakes: Too much text in images, not trying/testing platforms, and narrowing audience
✔️  Creatives: Everything requires teamwork in a startup, one can’t run everything well
✔️  Android or iOS? iOS
✔️  Favorite App(s): Freetrade and Letterboxd
✔️  What’s Hannah looking forward to with app technology in the future? iOS 14 widgets
Links and Resources:
Hannah Parvaz on LinkedIn
Curio
Quotes by Hannah Parvaz:
“Because we’re curating everything, we know that everything is packed with insight. We only pick pieces we think will be evergreen, so they can have a long shelf life.”
“Audio is a better medium for learning. Our main goal is really to just help everyone understand the world better so that people can really connect with each other.”
“We’re more focused on journalism and storytelling. We’re not really about the fast news cycle.”
“Everything requires teamwork in a startup, unless you’re somehow like a very talented magician. You can’t really run everything by yourself well.”
Brought to you by Business Of Apps
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#44: Dating apps growth in 2020 with Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group

An app growth is always on the radar of every app developer or a brand. Eavesdrop any app marketing team brainstorming session and you'll hear them avidly discussing  how to gain more loyal app users and what user acquisition channels to focus on.
Now, dating apps have a special place in the app industry and in our lives. No matter where you live, your age, or your gender, you probably use mobile apps to connect with others and dating apps is surely one way of doing that.
Today’s guest is Geoffrey Cook, CEO of The Meet Group. Meeting other people to socialize or date is simply part of human nature. The Meet Group is the largest provider of live streaming dating apps.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Five Dating Apps: MeetMe, SKOUT, Tagged, LOVOO, and GROWLr
✔️  Dating Community: 15 million monthly users mostly in United States and Europe
✔️  Live Streaming Solution: Monetizes via users giving each other virtual gifts
✔️  COVID Impact: Created significant increase in dating game usage in past five months
✔️  Management Tools: Shift to remote work using Zoom, Slack, and more for productivity
✔️  Marketing Channels: Singling out pricing power to acquire new users for growth strategy
✔️  Types of Content: Create user-generated content in form of chats and messages
✔️  Live Streaming: Consumption and production offers connection during social distancing
✔️  Videos: More efficient, more information available, and less risk swiping left or right
✔️  Android or iOS? iOS
✔️  Favorite App(s): Medium
✔️  What’s Geoffrey looking forward to with app technology in the future? Authenticity and AI
Links and Resources:
Geoffrey Cook on Medium
The Meet Group
Veronica and the Volcano
Quotes by Geoffrey Cook:
“The way we think of ourselves is really as the mobile version of the bar, the coffeehouse, this social gathering place.”
“What we’ve been doing that’s fairly unique is adding live streaming video to dating since 2016. And lately, we’ve been aiming to make everyone the star of their own dating show.”
“We, essentially, use all the same tools we used before the pandemic. We just use them more given that there is no in-person contact.”
“Marketing is always a challenge. Year over year, we’re seeing rates (cost per registrations) go up as it costs more to acquire users.”
Brought to you by Business Of Apps
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#43: App Subscriptions with David Barnard, Developer Advocate at RevenueCat

App Subscriptions - right now they feel so familiar and omnipresent.
Need some examples?
Do you watch movies on Netflix? Listen to music on Spotify? Get things delivered by Amazon Prime? Many app developers have gone to the subscription model to make money.
Today’s guest is David Barnard, Developer Advocate at RevenueCat. He talks about the pros and cons of app subscriptions. Spoiler alert - it’s not all roses and rainbows.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Development Background: Building apps from the beginning of Apple's iPhone SDK
✔️  Role at RevenueCat: Solve problems and make it a better product to monetize apps
✔️  App Subscription Pros: Customer and advocate uses RevenueCat to make money
✔️  App Subscription Cons: Bugs and code challenges create headaches and disasters
✔️  David’s App Business: RevenueCat, Launch Center Pro, and Weather Up
✔️  RevenueCat’s Mission: Help developers make more money
✔️  Why RevenueCat? Basic and broad platform without complexity for subscription apps
✔️  App Testing: RevenueCat’s new price testing feature sets best price to generate revenue ✔️  COVID: Accelerated RevenueCat’s business by working remotely before lockdowns
✔️  Money in the Bank: Series A funding provides additional revenue, growth, and flexibility
✔️  Free, Paid, or Freemium? App subscriptions experience slow progression on app stores
✔️  App Subscriptions: Keep consumers in mind to use app consistently and deliver value
✔️  Product Roadmap: Focus on retention, price optimization, and planning process
✔️  What’s David looking forward to with app technology in the future? Widgets on homescreen and iOS 14 release for privacy focused user acquisition
Links and Resources:
David Barnard on Twitter
David Barnard on LinkedIn
RevenueCat
RevenueCat Blog
Weather Up
Quotes by David Barnard:
“If you’re adding subscriptions to your app, you need all this infrastructure.”
“We charge our users because we provide a really great service that actually helps them make more money.”
“You’ve really got to match the value you are delivering to users.”
“Subscriptions are incredibly difficult to implement and get right.”
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#42: App User Acquisition with Influencers with Federico Llano, Co-Founder TATAM Digital

Do you know who are Influencers? Do you know that app user acquisition with Influencers is one of the app marketing techniques that help brands to connect their apps with tens of thousands of users?
Ok. Let's start with Influencers.
Influencers are movie, music celebrities or regular down-to-earth folks like you and me, who acquired vast amounts of devoted followers on social media around common interests they are passionate about. Popular influencers with millions of followers are often involved with various product endorsements, including mobile apps.
To make these product endorsements efficient and help app brands to achieve their specific goals, influencer marketing agencies stepped up.
Today’s guest is Federico Llano, co-founder of TATAM Digital. He talks about how influencer marketing works for mobile apps.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Entrepreneur or Influencer? Federico’s sales and marketing background as a gamer
✔️  What is influencer marketing? Consistently eyeing influencers into marketing mix
✔️  Who is an influencer? Someone with reach and influence on a certain audience
✔️  Do’s and Don’ts: What’s right and wrong with influencer marketing?
✔️  TATEM: Created to take a different approach to influencer marketing in the corporate world
✔️  Leverage Language: Connect with and talk on the same level when approaching brands
✔️  Influence Power: Equals ability to drive sales in the real world, not engagement rates
✔️  KPIs: Measure and optimize influencer performance to compare ROI
✔️  Mistakes Made: Not committing adequate time and patience to learn
✔️  Dealing with Influencers: Negotiate to price and meet deadlines
✔️  Best Fit Categories: Recurring revenue and subscription model for influencer marketing
✔️  Best Assets of Influencers: Curators of products, caring storytellers, believers in benefits
Links and Resources:
Federico Llano’s Email:
TATAM Digital
Quotes by Federico Llano:
“Influencer marketing is consistently eyeing influencers into your marketing mix.”
“We consider an influencer, someone that has both the reach and the influence on a certain audience. They are digital natives and they are actual content creators...not just a pretty face.”
Influence Power: Equals ability to drive sales in the real world, not engagement rates.
Elephant in the Room: Marketers invest $9 billion in influencer marketing, but 90% is not measured or understood.
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Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#41: App promotion with Reddit with Ashleigh Rankin, Senior Manager, Growth Partnerships at Reddit

App marketing is not a sprint, but a marathon. You are on a constant quest to find new channels to reach your app users. Most of us know about Facebook, Google, and Apple ads, but what do you know about app promotion with Reddit?
Reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website and mobile app. Launched in 2005, it has evolved into the biggest online "public square" to discussion a great number of topics, as of 2019 used by 430 million people on a monthly basis.
Today’s guest is Ashleigh Rankin, senior manager of growth partnerships at Reddit. Ashleigh shares best practices for marketing apps on Reddit.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Reddit Company: Network of more than 130,000 communities based on interests
✔️  Reddit’s Mission: Bring community and belonging to the world
✔️  Reddit’s Rules/Policies: Moderation keeps the platform clean, and safe for brands, and people
✔️  Reddit’s Robust System: Human judgment, nearly no AI involvement
✔️  Reddit Ads: Now with postgres, app marketers can drive app sales and installs
✔️  Native Ads: Brand participation adds value and resonates with specific Reddit users
✔️  Reddit Insights: Two-way communication channel for honest and targeted feedback
✔️  App Categories: Gaming and tech recruiting produce better outcomes/more installs
Links and Resources:
Ashleigh Rankin’s Email
Ashleigh Rankin of Reddit on LinkedIn
Reddit
Reddit Ads
Quotes by Ashleigh Rankin:
“People come to engage with content that they are passionate about.”
Reddit’s Mission: Bring community and belonging to the world.
“One of the really beautiful things about Reddit is that if you run...an interest-targeted campaign, you can find audiences that you didn’t necessarily know you had.”
“It’s just really important to test and learn and then hone in on what does work and optimize towards that.”
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Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
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London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#40: App Success in 2020 with Darius Mora CMO at Reflectly

Question to you - as an app marketer - how do you deal with stress and anxiety in everyday life to set yourself up for success? Listen to music, read a book, open a favorite app or journal your thoughts and problems?
Today’s guest is Darius Mora, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Reflectly, the world’s first and most popular intelligent journal app that utilizes AI. This year the app witnesses a significant growth in demand and we want to discuss how the mix of a great product and effective marketing channels allows the app grow happens that rapidly.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Reflectly App: Concept and competition
✔️  Mental Fitness/Wellness: Growing demand to acquire users, talent, and fresh ideas
✔️  Relax with Reflectly: Be mindful or meditate to reduce stress
✔️  Reflectly: Effective marketing made easy due to amazing engineering of product
✔️  Innovation: Reflectly won Google’s Material Design Award in 2019
✔️  Copyable Channels: No unexpected or other options that perform less successfully
✔️  Social Media Apps: Creates different levels of stress to be authentic or ashamed
✔️  Benefits of Journaling: Gain perspective, be grateful, and achieve better state of mind
✔️  Android or iOS? iOS
✔️  Favorite app(s): Wim Hof Method
✔️   What’s Darius looking forward to with app technology in the future? A/R
Links and Resources:
Darius Mora
Darius Mora on YouTube
Reflectly
Wim Hof Method
Quotes by Darius Mora:
“A lot of people will use journaling, which is an active way to be mindful. Meditation is a more passive way.”
“I haven’t seen any case where the marketing channel was the competitive advantage.”
“Even if your life is interesting, if you go on Instagram, you’ll feel like crap about yourself.”
“The human brain was not developed to be able to deal with so many inputs and all the attention-grabbing things jumping at us every single day.”
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A message from App Promotion Summit
Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#39: App retention: best practices with Anja Obermüller, Head of Product Marketing, Runtastic

App retention has been one of the most heated app marketing topics. 
Let's put it this way. What would you say if people buy your masterpiece but only to get through a few pages or the first chapter and never open it again? It not only happens with books, but mobile apps. Ask any app marketer with a decent experience and she or he would sigh and nod. 
Today’s guest is Anja Obermüller, Head of Product Marketing at Runtastic, where adidas’s running and training apps help runners live a happy and healthy life. Anja shares best practices for app retention. 
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Lifestyle Routine: Different apps serve different purposes
✔️  Sneak Peak: What level of retention should be expected from your app?
✔️  Sneaker Hack: Anja’s better with numbers than words
✔️  Name Change: Runtastic Running and Results to adidas Running and Training
✔️  Runtastic is Fantastic: More than 300 million downloads and 270 employees worldwide  
✔️  Incline, Don’t Decline: Identify natural product usage interval (daily, weekly, etc.)
✔️  Dig into Data: Realize retention problem, not optimize what you want
✔️  Biggest Mistakes: Don’t put monetization over retention or rely on benchmarks
✔️  Push Notification vs. Proxy Metric: Create a behavior of wanting to return to app
✔️  Preventive Measures: Continue to grow and change through retention optimization   
Links and Resources:
Anja Obermüller on LinkedIn
adidas Running and Training Apps by Runtastic
Quotes by Anja Obermüller: 
“I’m way better with numbers than with text. I’m a total fan of impact estimations, forecasts—everything that’s related to numbers.”
“Before even getting started with retention rate optimization is identifying your product usage interval.”
“It’s really important to figure out where your retention problem really is and not just optimizing for what you have.”
“One of the biggest mistakes is to put monetization over retention...engagement builds the foundation of monetization.”
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Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#38: User Acquisition with Christian Eckhardt, CEO and Co-Founder at Customlytics

Conversations between app marketers often focus on user acquisition (UA) and if you happen to be listening to savvy app marketers, you may listen them discussing a conundrum - when it comes to a particular app marketing, turns out there’s either not enough or too many choices to acquire mobile app users.
To resolve this puzzle, app marketers need to know what app user acquisition channels do work right now. So you need the expertise of somebody who's been keeping his or her hand on the pulse of various app user acquisition channels that have been pop up over the years.
Today’s guest is Christian Eckhardt, CEO and co-founder of Customlytics. Christian shares practical advice on how to choose user acquisition channels, UA campaign optimization, how to add a new channel right and more.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️  Mobile App Marketing: Track, measure, and optimize data efficiently to acquire users
✔️  CRM: Once users are acquired, retain them
✔️  Customlytics: Stays true to its core of making mobile marketing successful
✔️  Bottom Line: Pay attention to where users are spending their time
✔️  UA Channels: Social, search, and programmatic advertising space
✔️  App’s Lifecycle: Start with mainstream channels, then narrow down to niche ones
✔️  Essentials to Execute: UA campaign app store optimization (ASO), KPIs, and mistakes
✔️  Touch Points: How and when it is appropriate to add channels and creatives
✔️  TikTok Thoughts: Brands should use platform to launch app campaigns and ads
Links and Resources:
Christian Eckhardt on LinkedIn
Customlytics
App Clips
Quotes by Christian Eckhardt: 
“I went through the good school of touching every aspect of mobile marketing.”
“You have to be where the attention of the user is.”
Once users are acquired, retain them.
“What is actually influencing all those different metrics or KPIs?”
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Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024
 

#37: Game Taxonomy and Analytics with Amir Ghodrati, Director, Market Insights at App Annie

With so many games available in app stores, people can play them anytime and anywhere. Both Apple's iOS App Store and Google Play store from Google don't provide mobile games classification granule enough for developers to monetize their games efficiently. How can game developers better navigate the mobile game market to make more money?
Today’s guest is Amir Ghodrati, Director - Market Insights at App Annie, a mobile market data and analytics platform. Amir talks about game taxonomy analytics, problems game developers are facing with it today and what solution App Annie offers developers and brands.
Today’s Topics Include:
✔️ Data and People: Amir’s interest in analysis and communication of successful solutions
✔️ What is taxonomy? A branch of science that studies classifications. 
✔️ Mobile Game Landscape: Game categories and popularity challenging to navigate
✔️ $100 Billion: Mobile gaming is largest platform based on spend; 3X bigger than PC/Mac
✔️ Game Lifecycle: Shift habits and conditioning of casino, casual, and core game structure
✔️ Monetization Forms: Advertising, in-app purchases, and subscription models for games
✔️ Apples to Apples? Problems/solutions of multiple app stores, inconsistent classification 
✔️ Game IQ: Bring order, hierarchy, and insights to granularly segment gaming industry
✔️ Mobile Game Misconceptions: Changes over time and making money 
✔️ COVID-19 Impact: Share experiences and connect with friends and family through games.
Links and Resources:
Amir Ghodrati on LinkedIn
App Annie
Game IQ
App Annie on Twitter
Tweets/Quotes by Amir Ghodrati: 
“The mobile gaming industry has never been more lucrative, but also it’s never been so competitive.”
“It’s really a platform that has democratized gaming because the mobile phone is the one device that people have with them.”
“People are increasingly spending their time on mobile.”
“Information is only going to be useful if it’s accessible enough that people are willing to make decisions based off of it.”
Brought to you by Business Of Apps
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Discounted ticket prices are currently available on all of our 2024 summits
https://apppromotionsummit.com/
 
London - 25 Apr 2024
NYC - 27 Jun 2024
San Francisco - 26 Sep 2024
Berlin - 5 Dec 2024